We Looked Like Giants
by K. Elisabeth
Summary: Part 4 in the series, following "Break Even", "Like an Island", and "Breathe Me". Booth and Brennan struggle, and make breakfast, and jog. Named after the song "We Looked Like Giants" by Death Cab for Cutie.


**A/N:** I'm really, really tired of winter. I don't even live somewhere where it snows, and I'm tired of winter. I hate the early darkness, and the cold, and the lifelessness of the season. Winter is dead, silent, and motionless. Spring is alive and vibrant and boisterous, passionate and full. But I accept that I would not love the spring as much if it didn't come right after winter. It is so alive because it follows death so closely. I think that is a theme you will sense in this piece, and the one following it, which will be the final part of the series. Enjoy this, and let me know what you think.

* * *

_And together there  
In the shroud of frost  
The mountain air began to pass  
Through every pane of weathered glass  
And I held you closer  
Than anyone would ever get..._

_- We Looked Like Giants, Death Cab for Cutie  
_

* * *

The following day, after seeing or hearing nothing from him, she stopped waiting and went home—or rather, to the closest thing she had to a home. She put sheets on the bed, food in the fridge, and her toothbrush back on the edge of her own sink. When she looked in the mirror, the face didn't fit; she kept seeing a version of her that had never lived here, that did not want to live here, that wanted nothing to do with this mirror or this bathroom or this place at all.

Even though the sheets were clean, she couldn't sleep. It used to be that clean sheets could do it. They would stretch the fresh, cool fitted sheet over the corners of the mattress, and while he brushed his teeth she would smooth the flat sheet over the top of the bed, shaking out the comforter on top of it all before pulling her corner back and snuggling under it. The smell of fabric softener and the feel of the cool, clean linens usually had her half-asleep before he even got into bed.

Not so without him. She lay awake in the darkness, feeling the cold sheets like stone beneath her. She kicked at the blankets as they tangled around her legs, pulling her down into the mattress like a bound prisoner, or a psychiatric patient.

_You're not a psychiatric patient,_ the voice of Her said. She sat at the foot of the bed, legs crossed, flipping through an old issue of a physical anthropology journal. _Psychiatric patients are crazy—they see things that aren't there, hear voices, have one-sided conversations with themselves…_

"Shut up," Brennan told Her, and the irony was not lost on her. She laughed and disappeared, a grainy image fading from view. Brennan turned over on her side and pulled the blankets up over her face, but she could not block out Her voice even though She had presumably disappeared.

_You're all alone now,_ She said. _You did this to yourself, and now you have to pay. Did you really think he would be here waiting for you when you got back, when you practically kicked his teeth in on the way out the door? How stupid are you?_

"Go away," Brennan uttered through gritted teeth. Then she laughed—a strained, fraying sound—because it was all she could do. Grief had always struck her in the most bizarre of ways, and this feeling could only be described as grief. She was grieving her dead relationship, and the dead part of her that would never come back.

_Fine,_ She said. _But do you really want to be all by yourself? At least with me here, you've got somebody. When I leave, then you'll really be alone._ Brennan thought she could do better without her thoughts for company, especially when they were of such an abrasive, snarky quality. She said nothing, and eventually the sound of Her stopped.

Daylight found her alone and unrested. She sat at her table by herself with a burnt English muffin and jam, spreading it absently. When she realized that her fingers were covered in jam she put the knife back in the jar and threw the muffin in the garbage. The water in her building was like ice as she washed her hands, listening to Her voice taunt.

_What's happened to you? You're useless. Sniveling, cowardly, disgusting. You can't even make breakfast without him around. What happened to the strong, independent woman who didn't need anybody? Where'd she go?_ Brennan ignored Herself and curled up on the couch, wishing she did not have that TV he had convinced her to buy. It only reminded her of him, and the emptiness in the room as she stared into the blank black screen. She saw her own hollow shell staring back, and Her sitting on the end of the couch, giving her a revolted look as She shook Her head.

_Pathetic, _She said. _Just pathetic._

oOoOoOoOo_  
_

Booth pulled the drawstrings of the hood around his face as his vision was obscured by puffs of white vapor. He rubbed his hands vigorously together and breathed into them, trying to breathe life into the deadened appendages. Thirty degrees and sleeting wasn't exactly the best jogging weather, but he had to get out of his apartment or his head would implode. So he wrapped up in as many layers as he could move in, popped his earbuds in, and went for a jog.

The sidewalk crunched and slipped beneath the soles of his shoes, and he was barely able to keep his hefty frame upright as he pushed himself through the foul weather, the pulse of a song pounding in his ears. The people standing huddled under the bus stop could probably hear the song as he passed them, it was that loud. The louder he turned the music, the less he had to hear of his own thoughts, and that was mercy. His own thoughts had been keeping him up all night, berating him for his stubbornness, his unforgiveness, his aching, relentless love that would not die.

_You idiot,_ he heard himself say. _She left you, wasn't even going to say goodbye, didn't tell you anything. She doesn't love you; if she did, she wouldn't treat you that way. You want to be treated like that? You want someone who doesn't give a shit about you? What kind of person wants that in their life?_

He reached into his pocket and rolled the volume up louder, fully as loud as it would go. When he would turn the radio up while he was doing dishes and the neighbors banged on the walls, she used to shake her head and chastise him about hearing loss. He didn't care—it was worth it, and since he was going to go deaf from all the unmuffled gunshots he'd heard in his life, he might as well enjoy his hearing while he had it. That was his motto: enjoy it while you've got it. Only now he felt like he had nothing, and what he did have he couldn't enjoy. And it made him sick with anger, and disgust, and heartache.

"She deserves to suffer too," he told himself, lips chapping in the blistering cold. "She deserves to wait it out, she should feel what it's like…"

_Who are you punishing here, you or her?_ the voice asked. The volume wouldn't go up any higher, so he started singing along to the song, his chest pierced with a cold pain every time he inhaled.

"God bless the daylight, the sugary smell of springtime…"

He coughed out lyrics and remembered last spring, sitting on a bench with her outside of the Jeffersonian with two bagged lunches. It was a few months before they had made their relationship official, and they were still toeing the line between professional and romantic. Around them the tulips were in full bloom, covering the grounds in a carpet of pink, yellow, and red. In clusters around the pond the purple butterfly bush was coming into bloom, and a few small orange and black butterflies darted between the blooms.

"This is nice," she said, acknowledging the warm sun soaking into their hair and shoulders, tempered by a cool breeze. He agreed—spring had always been his favorite season, for reasons like that. Warm sun, cool breeze, flowers. Not that liking flowers was a particularly manly thing, but the way his mother had lovingly doted on him and her garden when he was a young child, before everything fell apart, he had to love them. They always reminded him of the mother he had briefly, the one he loved so dearly.

"It is," he agreed, unwrapping his sandwich. "I'm glad you decided to come with me, Bones."

"I'll admit, I wasn't entirely keen on the idea of an outside lunch at first," she said, taking a sip out of her hippie earth-loving stainless steel water bottle. "But you were right, this spot on the grounds is really quite pretty." He coughed on a mouthful of pastrami and swiss.

"I was what?" he asked. She smirked. "No really, I have to hear that again." She sighed.

"You were _right_," she repeated, and he relished the sound of the _r-word_ as it fell off her tongue. He grinned, taking a gulp of coke out of an oversized Styrofoam cup.

"Thanks," he said. "I agree, I was right." She laughed and shook her head.

"Of course," she said.

"Don't even start," he said, pointing his finger playfully at her. "with all of that machismo alpha-male crap. There's nothing macho about it, I was just right for once."

"For once," she echoed, and it took him a second to realize that she was playing too.

He lost his footing and nearly fell, catching himself just in time. The warmth faded away and he became acutely aware of how cold he was, hoodie soaked through with icy rain, socks squishing in his shoes. He turned the corner of the block and decided to go home—he had only gone about half a mile, but that would have to do for now. He needed to get home and change out of his wet clothes before he caught pneumonia. All the fire of his memories—the butterfly bush, her playful squint in the bright sunlight, the stillness after the breeze died and their laughter turned into contented sighs—was gone.

_And you still love her,_ the voice in the back of his head said loudly over the music and the impatient wail of sirens a couple of streets down. _Pathetic._

After a hot shower and a change of clothes, Booth crashed onto his couch, pressing his face into the cushions and listening to the sleet pound his windows outside. Even though it was mid-morning, it was as dark as dusk outside, street lamps smoldering a burnt orange. Just the kind of disgusting day to spent curled up in the warmth of your home.

He picked up his cell phone, then set it down. A minute later he picked it up again, holding it for a few seconds before setting it back down on the coffee table. Then he quickly picked it up again. If he called her, it would be a severe blow to his pride. But if he didn't, would she ever call him? He knew how proud she was—it was one of her biggest flaws. But did that mean he should chase her?

He set the phone down finally, letting out a heavy sigh. He had done enough chasing. He had tried to chase her out the door, tried to hold her close, and she didn't care. She disentangled herself and her life from him and left. If he chased her again today, he would continue chasing her every day for the rest of his life, and he couldn't do that. He couldn't do it to himself, and he couldn't do it to Parker, who would not understand why she kept coming in and out of his life, flittering around like a butterfly, landing lightly for just a moment before taking off again. It just wasn't fair to any of them. If she loved him, she would call. She would turn around and she would chase him, for once. He wouldn't run, he would be caught, but he refused to go running after her anymore.

He closed his eyes, resigned to his painful decision.

And then the phone rang.


End file.
